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Grosse negligence

There she goes again: After a series of recent interventions in the tri-state area, Berlin-based Katharina Grosse has applied her large-scale locational painting to a neglected Fort Tilden aquatics building in the Rockaways of Queens. The structure’s decay has been sublimely derailed by her spray-painting technique: A fuchsia phoenix, ready to rise (or fall—the building is slated for demolition). Exploding notions of traditional landscapes and sculptures, Grosse traipses beyond the strictures of form to include, in this instance, the sand, trees, sea grass and pavement surrounding the beachside hovel, ultimately creating an interfacing composition that sprawls with motion and gumption.

This temporary public art piece is part of Rockaway!, an ongoing collaborative program presented by MoMA PS1 alongside the Rockaway Artists Alliance that began in the wake of Hurricane Sandy in 2012. Two summers ago found solo projects by Patti Smith, Adrián Villar Rojas, and Janet Cardiff as well as a group show at the Rockaway Beach Surf Club. Grosse’s contribution continues the bold momentum of the Rockaways’ creative resurgence.

Klaus Biesenbach, MoMA PS1 director and Rockaway! mastermind, invited Grosse to the peninsula after seeing her work for Prospect.1 in New Orleans, “where she painted a small house that was abandoned and condemned after Hurricane Katrina,” he told designboom.com. “I was deeply moved that a building just waiting to be taken down was given this temporary, proud, and fragile beauty. When I heard that the aquatics building in Fort Tilden was to be demolished following Hurricane Sandy, I immediately wanted to invite Katharina to do a project at the site.”